Dear God

A letter to God starts with exhaustion. "I've been trying awful hard to make You proud of me," Cory Asbury writes, but "the harder that I try the harder it becomes," and "I feel like giving up most of the time." The second stanza admits to "chasing their approval" and a conviction that "the more I try to prove, the less I have to show." Doubt builds into a bargaining line: "if I pray a little harder, if I follow all the rules, I wonder could I ever be enough."

Then the voice reverses. "Dear child," God answers, "I hope you know how much I love you and I'm proud of you." The reply is specific and tender: "the thoughts I have for you will never change or fade away," and "when you felt like giving up, I never did." God is "not scared of imperfections or the questions in your head," and says the exhausted singer "has always been enough."

The remedy is trust in mystery and melody over performance: "just fall into the mystery, and I'll meet you here in the melody." The close is an invitation to "try again" and "love again." Ephesians 2:8-9 sets grace against works, Jeremiah 29:11 speaks of God's thoughts toward His people, and Matthew 3:17 is the Father's pleasure in His beloved Son.